The locket made a repetitive click-clacking sound as thick fingers flicked it open, then snapped it closed again. Only a moment later the sound repeated itself, audible over the sound of water slipping past wood and wind blowing through rigging. A third time the locket opened, then snapped shut to hide the image within.
The sound was then interrupted by the thudding of knuckles on the door of the cabin. Ignored, a second set of knocks followed the first, and then the door itself swung open with a slight creaking sound. Boots on the plank flooring thumped similarly to the knocking that had preceded it, coming to a stop before the large table in the center of the room.
“Sir?” Dressed properly in the uniform of an officer, the owner of the boots came to attention. “You asked me to alert you when they were about to come into range.”
The locket click-clacked again before the man behind the table looked up from it. “Very well.” Rising from the chair he was seated in the locket’s owner stepped to the bed nearby and picked up a jacket with the epaulets and insignia that marked him as captain of the ship, a creature as near to a god as any mortal could hope to achieve.
Donning the jacket he stepped past the younger man who had brought the message to exit the cabin. His steps took him directly onto the main deck, a privilege only the captain could enjoy in the cramped spaces that were a fighting vessel’s interior. His eyes swept the deck around him.
There was a watchfulness and tension there that he could almost taste. Younger men purportedly off duty lined the rails, watching forward with eager anticipation. More experienced hands lounged around the deck playing cards, idly gossiping, and hiding their mixture of trepidation and hunter instinct behind a faked casualness. Eyes slyly turned his way as people noticed the captain step on deck and the tension ratcheted up palpably. He straightened his jacket and climbed up onto the quarterdeck above his cabin.
Once there, above the crowded main deck, he gazed forward. Through a veritable thicket of masts and spars, along with the stack belching black smoke into the sky, all festooned with vine-like ropes, he could see another ship. Unlike his own, that one was under full sail and lacked any smoke spewing chimney. Despite the difference in canvas the two ships sported, it was clear the engine below deck was making the difference. His vessel was gaining.
“Even with the wind against us,” he growled, hunger in his voice.
“Those fiends they have aboard have been trying to speed their own vessel while flinging adverse winds in our face.” The younger man beside him sounded a bit smug. “I estimate we’ll be in range within five minutes in spite of their deviltries.”
“How very fortunate for us that we can harness steam to replace the wind,” the captain responded. As soon as we have the range, I want just enough of a course change for the wind to aid us rather than hinder. Send the men aloft and man the guns, mister. And send word below. I want that boiler pushed to the limits. To the absolute limits, do you understand”
“Aye sir!” The young officer dashed off even as the horns began crying out the call to quarters. Shouts filled the air as men hurled themselves into action, some flinging themselves below to begin stowing tables and readying guns, others flying into the rigging with practiced haste.
Within moments the trembling that was a constant sensation below foot changed its timber. The gentle vibration became a deeper, rumbling shake as the black smoke coming from the top of the stack began roaring out in greater volume. The air filled with the cracking sound of sails and lines tautening as they unfurled and caught the wind. Behind him the great steering wheel spun and the ship briefly shuddered as the angle of the wind changed. Masts began to bend forward, tugging at the ship, and the splashing of the paddle wheels to either side of the vessel increased their speed.
Unnoticed, the locket returned to the captain’s hand. The clicking and clacking of it being opened and then snapped shut took on a rhythm, almost as though it was the metronome beating out the pace of a dirge.
It wasn’t until his young first officer returned and coughed politely that he noticed he had taken it out.. Startled, he looked down at his hand and at the young face revealed as the lid sprang open once more. Hastily he clapped it shut and stuffed it back into his pocket.
“Are we prepared?” he asked.
“Yes sir. We have but to run out the guns.”
“Then do so.”
“Aye sir.”
A quickly barked command and the horns awoke, crying out their tune filled orders, and thumps came from below as hatches opened and long barrels emerged into the sunlight. Eagerly they began angling, straining at the gunports in an effort to get the angle on their prey, barely more than two miles away.
There was a moment of pregnant pause laden with anticipation.
“Land!”
All eyes shot upward toward the rigging to spy the man in the nest pointing outward. “A quarter of Starboard!”
The captain immediately moved to the starboard rail, holding his hand out. A watchman slapped a spyglass into the open palm. Swiftly he extended the glass and brought it to his eye. After only a second he snapped it back down.
“Damn it all!” he spat. “That’s the headland. I can see that damn elven fortress atop the cliff. “Damn them! Damn them and their children for seven generations!” Angrily he heaved the spyglass with all his might, sending the expensive device far out into the waves.
A stunned silence filled the quarterdeck as the men went stiff, shocked at their captain’s outburst. They glanced towards one another in uncertainty.
The first mate stepped up beside him. He bent close, his young voice quiet, barely audible above the sound of wind and wave. “Sir, it’s my duty to remind you that any waters visible from the coast are elven waters. If we open fire now…”
“There will be hell to pay,” the captain snapped back. “Those damned bastards in that fort will gleefully produce all the papers they need to prove we fired on an innocent ship, that there was no way that the crew were slavers, and they’ll demand reparations. It would be the end of my career!”
The first officer stepped back. “Just doing my duty, sir,” he said softly.
The captain deflated. “I know.” He sighed. “Just as I know that they are slavers. That there could very well be dozens of our people in the hold now, being carted off to die of overwork in the fields, or worse. And just as much as I know they are laughing at us over there, on that ship. Their mages are celebrating the triumph of their evil over our engineering, and those black-gutted bastards are counting their pay already.”
The locket snapped open, then just as quickly slapped shut with a click. “Again.” The snap-click repeated. “We’ve failed again.”
The first officer reached over and snatched the open locket from the captain’s fingers. Shocked, the captain could only stare as the man turned the locket so that he could gaze at the image inside himself.
“I was going to ask for her hand,” the first officer said softly, staring at the picture within the locket.
He looked at the locket there in his first officer’s hand. With a suspiciously shuddering sigh he nodded. “I was going to give it.”
*Click*
The first officer handed the locket back, then looked around at the men there on the quarterdeck. The man’s jaw stiffened in a moment of thought, and then the officer turned back to the captain, giving a slight nod. The captain returned it, then opened his mouth.
“Open fire!”
